The Legionnaire Games: Day 32, hour 24
Arabella vomited on her hands and knees.
It was late, and we were the only ones in the hall. Everyone else was asleep, getting as much rest as they could before tomorrow’s competition.
“Please, let me help you,” I whispered as I reached down, but she pushed and kicked to get away from me.
I hated seeing her like this.
Broken.
Suffering.
She needed someone to protect her. I wanted to be that person.
A few hours ago, she’d entered the shifter legion’s room with wild hair and a smile on her face.
She’d left with braids and a haunted expression.
Now her movements were jerky and her eyes wide, unfocused, and sightless like she was far away.
“What happened, sweetheart?” I asked as I approached her with my palms up in a nonthreatening position.
I’d read a book about the psychology of body language.
Appearing approachable was important to fostering trust with someone.
The book had also said that if you stared into someone’s eyes for over a minute, chemicals would release in their brain that mimicked love. Attachment. Dependence.
I kept my eyes on Arabella every chance I got.
Problem was, it wasn’t working.
Now, as I approached her, either she couldn’t hear me over the sound of her retching or she didn’t care to answer.
“Sweetheart, are you okay?” I asked softly.
She pointedly turned her head in the other direction.
I scratched at my throat as the urge to scream tightened my chest.
Gasping for air, I couldn’t breathe.
I needed her to look at me, but I couldn’t do anything but whisper quietly, and I couldn’t get her attention. Sometimes I wished I couldn’t speak at all. At least then, words wouldn’t feel so close. Like I could taste them.
Eternally taunting me.
Losing your ability to speak was painful, but having the ability and being unable to use it was torture.
Every day.
Every night.
Every moment of my life.
I was trapped.
And there was no escaping it. No solution. No way out.
Just suffering.
And it was driving me to madness. My mates had recognized the signs and tried to coddle me to protect me from myself, but it wasn’t working.
Nothing was.
Slowly but surely my ability to cope was eroding around me.
More often than not, I woke with my mouth open on a silent scream. It was bubbling under my skin at all times, and all it would take was a little impetus and boom.
I’d explode.
All I wanted was to open my throat and scream until my vocal cords were shredded and my body vibrated with the pleasure of letting go.
As a teenager, I’d have sworn I’d never lose control. I wasn’t a monster, so I’d never release my voice unless it was absolutely necessary.
Now it was not a matter of if; it was only a matter of when.
The years hadn’t been kind.
Every day, I woke up and wondered if today would be the day I’d do the unforgivable and push myself and my mates into total damnation.
Would it be in a crowded room? In a city surrounded by millions of unsuspecting sheep?
Someday I’d lead them all to slaughter, and the release would taste so sweet that I wouldn’t care.
Pain had a funny way of tearing you to shreds, piece by little piece.
And I was at my breaking point.
“Please, baby,” I whispered as loudly as I dared without using the full power of my voice.
Arabella shivered on the marble floor and didn’t turn her head to acknowledge me. She gave me nothing.
I took a step forward and touched her arm. Gently.
She scrambled away from me. Knees clacking against stone as she gathered herself to her feet and stumbled down the hall.
She ran.
Away. From. Me.
I slapped my hand over my mouth as I hurried after her, words burning my tongue and begging to be released.
As she sprinted down the halls, my vision wavered like it did when my tattoos activated. I felt the petals drifting down my neck and across my collarbone.
Arabella wasn’t supposed to run from me.
I’d been so nice to Aran. To her.
I was the one who kissed her lips.
I was the one who held her tenderly.
I was the one who told the men to back off.
I played the part of the good guy so she would run to me, not away.
I called her nice names and looked her in the eye and kept my body posture nonthreatening.
All of that work.
For her to run away like I hadn’t already claimed her as mine.
Would it be different if I could talk? Would she fall against me and melt at my pretty words?
I’d thought my lack of voice didn’t matter to her.
Arabella was the first person besides my mates who could read my lips.
She was the first person who seemed to actually see me and not just want me for my voice.
For the last months, she’d watched me constantly.
In class, at meals, in our room, pink had stained her cheeks as she stared at me when she thought I wasn’t looking. Her attention had been a balm to my frazzled soul.
Arabella provided the perfect distraction from the pain slowly eating me alive.
There was only one thing that kept me from remembering how trapped I was in my own skin.
One thing I used to cope—obsession.
Infatuation was too pleasant a word to describe it.
I was overwhelmed by a frenzied need to own, taste, and know everything about another person. To climb under their skin. To possess them so fully they didn’t know where I ended and they began.
It had started years ago with Corvus and Scorpius, and to this day, I still watched them compulsively.
I thought about them constantly.
Every second of my life was filled with planning. I planned how I would touch them. Defile them. Own them. Make them irrevocably mine.
But I couldn’t touch my mates without pain, not yet.
For years, my poison of choice had been outside my grasp. Thinking about them but not being able to act on my urges was damnation incarnate.
So I’d unraveled.
At the seams.
Until about two months ago when I’d found someone new to obsess over. Someone I could actually taste. I could ruin.
For the first time in forever, I’d had a purpose and a distraction that actually worked.
It had all been going to plan.
I’d played the part of the nice guy.
Smiled when Aran needed it and stuck up for him so he would see me.
I’d offered him comfort when he needed it most. Manipulated him into caring about me back.
In a dangerous, violent place, I’d given him what he needed. Someone nice.
Still, sometimes I’d forgotten to play the part.
Like when Aran was gasping for air beneath us as we’d held him underwater and I couldn’t stop pushing his head under. His helplessness was intoxicating. The noises he’d made were so exquisite. The way he’d fought and snarled against the overwhelming strength of my mates.
Would he fuck the same way?
I’d been dying to know.
When he’d glared at me with a wounded expression afterward, I’d fallen apart, convinced I’d ruined everything I’d worked so hard to create between us.
But all my worrying had been for nothing because Aran had still been interested in me. He’d seen behind my mask and still forgiven me.
After that, my interest in him had become a full-blown obsession.
And when Aran had turned out to be the most stunning woman I’d ever seen in my life…my interest had become mania.
I liked to play games.
I liked to collect treasures.
I already had two perfect men: two dragons that made the House of Malum crest proud. Scorpius and Corvus.
Now I had a sweetheart.
A fearless, blue-haired, doe-eyed woman to add to my collection.
Where their strength was overwhelming and in-your-face, hers was quiet and unassuming. It was still impressive. And she was just as manipulative as I was, disguising herself as a man.
She’d played us all.
Where my mates’ darkness was a loud explosion that destroyed the world, her darkness was a quiet implosion that pulled the world into her.
Arabella was a composition of mesmerizing turquoise: soft features, smoking lips, and haunted eyes.
She was a jagged construction of paradigms; she radiated strength, yet she was broken.
I wanted to know every single thing that made Arabella tick.
What did she think about that made her stare off into the distance?
Were her thoughts dark?
Why did she smoke so much?
Why did she avoid sex?
Why had she killed Horace?
Why did her eyes sometimes glaze over when she stared at fire?
Why did she constantly itch her back?
Why did she sometimes revel in violence and, at other times, hate it?
Why did she pick at her lip?
Why had we only seen her create two ice daggers if she was a powerful fae?
Why had she eaten her mother’s heart?
Why did she look away when I stared into her eyes?
Why did she keep pushing me away when we kissed?
Why did she seem more comfortable when she was masquerading as Aran than as Arabella?
She was a puzzle, and I wanted to solve her until I knew the consistency of every breath she took. I’d been so close to figuring her out and pulling her into my web.
With centimeters to go, she’d pulled away.
The slave tattoo had put a wedge between us, and she no longer gave me coy glances. All I got were shuttered stares. The enslavement had destroyed any trust I’d earned, and it wasn’t fair.
But it would all be okay because Arabella didn’t realize that trust was never hers to give.
It was mine to take.
She thought she could just choose not to be my sweetheart. A laughable idea.
That wasn’t how this worked.
I’d already decided she was mine because she kept my madness at bay. Kind of. Mostly she just gave me something else to fixate on, and that counted. Right?
Now I just had to catch her.
Stained-glass windows refracted rainbows through the empty halls. Arabella sprinted down them with impressive speed.
Her bare feet slapped loudly against the marble floors.
I pounded after her.
I was larger and faster, but she was frantic and had gotten a head start.
Arabella looked back over her shoulder, and her bloodshot eyes widened, horrid bruises standing out against her skin as she blanched. Sinful lips parted.
Her face contorted with fear, and she whipped her head back around, blue braids flying as she sped up.
My heart rate increased at the sight of her wounds.
She turned the corner, disappeared from view, and I pressed my hand harder against my lips to hold back a scream.
If she’d just calm down, I could take care of her. Fuss over her. Make sure nothing harmed her ever again. I’d protect her from the world if she just let me.
Instead, she ran from me.
Rejected my help.
If she didn’t want the good guy, then why should I give her that? I’d already decided she was mine.
When I’d kissed Aran’s mouth and promised him he’d be my toy, it was Arabella who had melted against me like butter.
She’d agreed.
We’d both tasted it.
And there were repercussions to my ownership.
The petals drifted faster down my neck like whispering silk. If this was how my sweetheart wanted to play it, then she’d get what she was asking for.
I pulled my fingers away from my lips.
Lightning cracked.
Blinding light exploded.
Our footsteps pounded like thunder.
She could run, but I’d always catch her. Drag her back to me.
She would never get away.
Because you couldn’t run from your destiny, and I’d already decided she was mine.
Arabella lunged toward our room. “Orion is about to lose it, do something!” she screamed as she entered.
Oh, I’d lost it all right. She’d find out how unraveled I was.
I opened my lips.
If she didn’t want me when I was nice, then I was done pretending.
Gold metal clicked as it floated off my ears and separated into the shards of a crown above my head.
I sucked in air.
Opened my vocal cords.
And began to si—
Oomph. Two bodies slammed against me. A hand slapped over my face, and my arms were restrained and pinned behind my back.
“What are you doing?” Corvus snarled, silver eyes frantic as he stared at me with horror.
I tried to push Scorpius off me, but his grip was rock-solid, and he used the couple inches of height he had on me to wrench my arms back further.
There was nowhere to go.
My mates boxed me out and blocked my view of Arabella as the door slammed. She’d disappeared inside our room.
I wanted to scream.
My sweetheart was so close but still out of my reach.
Corvus’s face shattered. “Are you okay? Is there something we can do to help you? Was it the fall? Did it make you worse?” Flames danced atop his skull, and he crushed me against his chest.
Corvus trembled against me while Scorpius stood stiffly.
“I’m fine,” I mouthed as I forced myself to relax. “I’m fine. I just got a little worked up. It was nothing.”
I let my head lull forward and nuzzled it against Corvus’s chest tenderly. I gave him what he needed.
Melted against him.
I gave him my obedience.
Corvus slowly relaxed against me and whispered, “Thank the sun god.”
Scorpius’s punishing grip turned into a firm embrace, and my Protector and Ignis stopped constraining.
They clung to me desperately.
I’d done the right thing.
Ever so slowly, I forced my vocal cords to untense and rebuilt my mask. The crown clicked back onto my ears. I pretended for my mates’ sake that this was what I wanted. All I needed.
Sometimes I felt like the worst Revered in history.
Like I was playing a role I couldn’t fulfill.
How was I supposed to provide balance and calm for others when I was untethered myself?
Corvus squeezed my torso and whispered against my temple, “It’s all going to be okay. We’re going to find our fourth.”
I nodded back like I cared about the faceless Protector I was also supposed to bring peace to. How could I?
I was struggling to help my Ignis and Protector even though I’d known them all my life. Even though my life purpose as a Revered was to help them.
But my sweetheart didn’t need me.
She wanted nothing from me and rejected my attempts to help her. She was independent in a way I could never be.
Arabella fell apart daily, yet she didn’t want anyone to pick up the pieces for her. She did it herself. She didn’t need me, and that fact alone made her mine. Period.
Fingers curling with anticipation, I trembled.
All it had taken was a few seconds in a lightning-streaked hall. Everything had changed between us.
She could run, but I could hunt.
A male devil was possessive of those he cared for. But a devil king from the House of Malum hoarded his treasure and breathed fire on anyone who dared challenge his affection.
I’d massacre cities just to make her smile.
From the haunted look in Arabella’s eyes, it would come to that.
I wouldn’t hesitate. Not when it was for her.
Anything for her.
